These days it seems you can’t open a newspaper, turn on a TV or, indeed, go online without reading something about social media. And it is for good reason.

Social media is changing the way we live our lives. If you think that’s a hyperbolic overstatement, have a glance at some of our Facebook facts.

But Facebook is only one ingredient in the social media mix – there are many platforms that work together to create a rich, interactive multimedia experience in the social sphere.

Whilst getting to grips with these platforms isn’t exactly rocket-science, it does require some prior knowledge…a knowledge that many how-to guides wrongly assume every reader already has.

So, following on from our guides on how to write the perfect corporate tweet, how to manage multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts and how to run a Twitter chat, we thought we’d pull together a compendium of social media speak; a glossary of all the common terms you’re likely to encounter when working with social media professionals.

This list is far from exhaustive, but it’s certainly a good starting point.

4 key social media platforms

Facebook: This is the most popular social networking site in the world, and its 640 million members could well rise to the magic billion mark by the end of 2011. A third of Facebook users now access the platform through mobile phones and businesses are increasingly turning to Facebook as a means of connecting with their customers.

Twitter: With over 200 million users, Twitter is the world’s preeminent microblogging tool. Users post updates of no more than 140 characters (including spaces). Twitter is a great way of sharing bite-sized chunks of information and to follow like-minded individuals from across your industry or relevant news networks. Twitter isn’t typically used to network with friends.

YouTube:  You will no doubt be familiar with YouTube, a video-sharing website now owned by Google. You can upload, view, share and comment on videos, and you can embed YouTube videos for free in your blogs.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003,it is mainly used for professional networking. Today, LinkedIn has over 100 million registered users spread across 200 countries and territories worldwide.

An A-Z of social-media speak

A

Affiliate: A partner website that links to your own website is known as an affiliate.

Affiliate marketing: This is where a website owner advertises a retailer’s wares, often through large banner ads or other links, and then receive a fee for every lead or sale generated.

Alerts: There are Google News Alerts, Blog Alets, Web Alerts, Video Alerts and Discussion Alerts which – not surprisingly – alert you whenever a new page is published online that includes a keyword or set of keywords of your choice. Companies often use alerts to monitor mentions of their brand across the web.

AstroTurfing: This is a form of advocacy often in support of a political or corporate agenda designed to give the appearance of an organic grassroots movement. In social media terms, AstroTurfing is used to generate excitement or a ‘buzz’ in a particular product, with someone paid to generate the buzz rather than the interest snowballing of its own accord.

Avatar: A graphic that represents the author of a piece of online content, usually in place of the author’s real photo.

B

Back channel: Whilst social media is all about ‘open’ and ‘public’, there is often a need for private communications (e.g. emails or direct messaging) to be exchanged between key people in a social networking interaction. This is known as a back channel.

Blog: A blog is a portmanteau of the words ‘web’ and ‘log’, and are used by individuals and/or companies to commentate on anything of their choosing. Corporate blogs are typically used to communicate key information and analysis with customers, employees and other partners.

Blogosphere: A generic term to describe all blogs online…of which there are millions.

Blogroll: A blogroll is simply a list of other blogs a blog-owner really likes and links to from their own homepage.

C

Categories: These are normally used in social media to arrange content into subject areas. These can help users identify key blog posts from within their area of interest.

Chat: A chat is pretty much any online conversation, and normally involves users adding text and other media in a linear fashion into the same space in real-time. For example, a group Twitter chat.

Cloud computing:  You’ve probably read a lot about ‘the cloud’ recently. Cloud computing is when users access data remotely across an internet connection, rather than through working from a desktop.

Comments: Most blogs allow users to add comments under posts. Comments help facilitate interaction with customers and the public in general, and businesses should monitor comments and respond accordingly.

Content: A general term for any piece of online media, including images, graphics, text, videos, animations, sound-clips and anything else that could conceivably fall under the ‘media’ or ‘information’ remit.

Content management systems (CMS): These are software tools that allow users to create static web pages, blogs and otherwise manage their online information. WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the blogosphere.

Crowdsourcing: blur Group uses Crowdsourcing as part of its Creative Services Exchange. Check our What is Crowdsourcing portal for more detail on this technique…or watch this video:

D

Dashboard: This is the administration area on a standard blogging platform such as WordPress. It’s where you post content from, check traffic, manage comments etc.

Delicious: Now owned by Yahoo!, Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.

Digg: This is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4 – launched in late 2010, Digg’s main function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively

Dooced: Dooced is a slang term for someone who is fired from their job because of controversial content they published online.

E

Ecosystem: An online community or group of communities, and how they interact with their digital environment. The blogosphere is one example of an ecosystem.

Embedding: This is when a small piece of code is added to a blog or website to display a video or photo hosted elsewhere. A typical use of this would be when YouTube videos are embedded on blogs.

Eye rest: Making content easy to digest (easy on the eyes) by cutting down on text, using images, titles, bullet points, lists and hyperlinks.

F

Feed: This refers to any content delivered at regular intervals, for example the latest blog posts or social activity from an individual/company you sign-up to.

Flickr: YouTube is the world’s biggest video-sharing website, and Flickr is number-one for photo-sharing.

Follow: The act of monitoring (‘Following’) someone’s online activity, for example through Twitter.

Friend (noun): Not necessarily someone you’ve met in real-life, a ‘friend’ is anyone you’ve had some sort of interaction with and have agreed to ‘connect’ with through a social platform, such as Facebook.

Friend (verb): This is now entering common parlance, it’s the act of adding someone to a social network. For example, “I’ll ‘friend’ you on Facebook”

H

Hashtag: Short messages on services such as Twitter or FriendFeed can be tagged by including one or more hashtags (#): words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#), can then be searched by other users to help the flow of information and online conversations.

Hyperlink: This is any link on a website that takes you to another webpage or document on the Internet.

I

Instant messaging (IM): This is typically real-time text conversations using a tool such as Skype Chat, AOL Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger. It can be one-on-one or group-based.

L

Like: Facebook’s Open Graph API means Internet users can ‘like’ any piece of content they see online (as long as it has been integrated with Facebook’s Open Graph API), and it will be shared with all their friends on Facebook. ‘Like’ is a system where social networkers can show their approval.

Lurker: This is someone who reads social media content but rarely contribute or comment.

M

Mashable: An online news resource for all things related to social media and technology. Mashable is one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Metadata:  This refers to any data, such as titles, descriptions, categories and tags and captions, that describe a media item. So, for example, a YouTube video description is part of its metadata.

Microblogging: Twitter or Tumblr are good examples of microblogging. In short, it’s the act of disseminating short messages across the web.

MySpace: This was once one of the top social networks in the world, but it has lost the social networking battle to Facebook. MySpace is attempting to reinvent itself as an entertainment hub rather than attempt to compete with Facebook.

O

Offline: The opposite of online…so anything that isn’t connected to the Internet.

Online: You know what this means…

Open Graph API (Facebook): Facebook’s Open Graph API connects external websites with Facebook through such elements as ‘Like’ functions. It makes the whole Web more ‘social’

P

Podcast: A downloadable radio show designed for listening on a portable media device or a computer.

Privacy settings: Your personal or business social network setting, enabling you to control what content is visible and to whom.

Profile: The online representation of an individual’s identity, e.g. your personal Facebook profile or your company’s LinkedIn profile

Q

Quora: This is an online knowledge market that aggregates questions and answers across many topics, and enables users to collaborate on them. It’s similar to Yahoo! Answers and Anwers.com.

S

Search engine marketing (SEM): This is tactics employed by businesses to attract customers and generate brand awareness through monitoring customers’ search habits and building a campaign accordingly.

Search engine optimisation (SEO): SEO is the art of setting-up your website to be as search engine friendly as possible. This includes optimising each page for certain key search terms (as used by customers in search engines).

Sentiment: A broad feeling or consensus across the web, normally relating to brand perception (e.g. positive, negative or neutral).

Share: This is when you ‘share’ specific content with friends or ‘followers’, it could be a blog post, YouTube video or other informational tidbit.

Social media: What you’re here to learn about! It’s essentially any digital platform that facilitates interaction between users online. It’s YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, Microblogging and much, much more.

T

Tag cloud: A tag cloud is a visual representation of tags attributed to certain blog posts. The most commonly used tags are usually shown in a larger typeface.

Tags: Simply put, tags are keywords attached to any blog post, image or video to help users search topics or media. These can help with search both from search engines and within a website itself.

Troll: Anyone who posts controversial or deliberately offensive or irrelevant messages in any online community.

Tweet: A 140-characters-or-less (including spaces) message posted on Twitter, a real-time microblogging platform.

Twitterverse: Similar to the blogosphere, except this specifically refers to all conversations on Twitter.

U

User-generated content (UGC):  A phrase that refers to all material created by ‘the public’, it could be comments on a blog post, videos uploaded to YouTube or any form of interaction on a company’s Facebook fan page.

V

Viral marketing: A marketing campaign that’s so popular it ‘goes viral’. Social media is often used as part of a viral marketing campaign.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VOiP) is when you use a computer or other web-enabled device to place phone calls. Skype is the most popular example of a VOiP platform.

W

Wall: This is any shared discussion board. Each Facebook account has a ‘wall’, where all comments are ‘public’ to those permitted to view.

Webcasting: This refers to audio or video broadcasts delivered either live or delayed across the web.

WordPress: Is the most popular Content Management System for bloggers. It’s open-source and can be hotsed (WordPress.com) or un-hosted (WordPress.org).

Y

Yammer: This is an enterprise social network service that was launched in late 2008. Unlike Twitter, which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within organisations or between organisational members and pre-designated groups. It’s basically Twitter and Facebook but for users on the same company domain.